Death as Punishment

  • Thread starter Thread starter josephdaniel29
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

josephdaniel29

Guest
I was told by another poster that God inflicted death upon humanity as a punishment for sin. Is that the teaching of the Catholic Church? Can you please provide sources for your answers. 🙂

Thank you!

In Christ
Joe
 
God didn’t, our human parents did.

I’ll see if I can find the paragraphs in the CCC.

Genesis 3:

The Fall of Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ "

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
 
From the document you linked it appears that death was not a punishment from God. Am I reading it correctly?

In Christ
Joe
 
Hi Joseph. If I can put some additional words and reflection I would say God did not punish mankind but rather gave a solution to the problem of evil and sin. Death was not a punishment but rather an act of mercy. For instance if man continues to live after sinning without dying then evil and sin can be eternal. But death came to man as an act of mercy not of punishment so that sin and evil will not be eternal that is it will not last forever. Had death not entered the world because of sin then we can go on sinning forever. Death then is a solution to this and a remedy. Death then limits sin and evil only to this life for after death eternal life is available and there death has no more dominion because we do not sin anymore.
 
It’s not clear if you are asking about original sin, or personal/collective sin. Others have mentioned original sin, but the Old Testament has numerous examples where God “struck someone dead” for sinning. Maybe the largest examples were punishment for collective sin, such as the serpents who preyed upon the Israelite in the desert who blasphemed God. Or the residents of Sodom & Gomorrah for sexual sins.

God also struck down individuals such as Onan, who had intercourse with his brother’s widow but withdrew and allowed his seed to spill on the ground.

The Church accepts these Biblical events.
 
josephdaniel29 said:
I was told by another poster that God inflicted death upon humanity as a punishment for sin. Is that the teaching of the Catholic Church? Can you please provide sources for your answers. 🙂
Click to expand...
CCC#400 The harmony in which [Adam and Eve] had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”, for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.
 
josephdaniel29 said:
I was told by another poster that God inflicted death upon humanity as a punishment for sin. Is that the teaching of the Catholic Church? Can you please provide sources for your answers. 🙂

Thank you!

In Christ
Joe
Click to expand...
How does one interpret God when He said

Gen 2:
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die

So does Death = Punishment for sin?, consequence for sin? Both? Neither?

From the Catechism

**402 **All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: “sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.”
 
steve_b said:
How does one interpret God when He said
Click to expand...
That’s what I’m asking you, or moreover how does the Church see it? I’m having a hard time understanding based on that section from the catechism. Was death a punishment inflicted on humanity?

In Christ
Joe
 
It depends on your interpretation:

If I say: “Do not touch the stove or you will get burned”, getting burned is a consequence, not a punishment. However, within the consequence is the punishment if you want to think in those terms.

If I say: “Do not spit on your sister or you will go to bed early”, going to bed is a punishment. But, being forewarned, it is also a consequence and a choice made by the spitter.

I don’t know if the Church makes a distinction between a consequence of sin or a punishment for sin.
 
Evan said:
It depends on your interpretation:

If I say: “Do not touch the stove or you will get burned”, getting burned is a consequence, not a punishment. However, within the consequence is the punishment if you want to think in those terms.

If I say: “Do not spit on your sister or you will go to bed early”, going to bed is a punishment. But, being forewarned, it is also a consequence and a choice made by the spitter.

I don’t know if the Church makes a distinction between a consequence of sin or a punishment for sin.
Click to expand...
Good analogies.

Regarding sin, (i.e. commiting an offense), consequence and punishment are glued at the hip.
 
Baltimore Catechism #3

Q. 253. What befell Adam and Eve on account of their sin?

A. Adam and Eve, on account of their sin, lost innocence and holiness, and were doomed to sickness and death.

Basically questions: 253-267

If you want to learn your faith with clarity and swift then use the Baltimore Catechism. You will learn more about your faith in a clear and concise manner than from any other source.

baltimore-catechism.com/

Teach your children with the new St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism: catholicbookpublishing.com/ShowProduct.aspx?ProductID=179&DepartmentID=60
 
josephdaniel29 said:
That’s what I’m asking you, or moreover how does the Church see it? I’m having a hard time understanding based on that section from the catechism. Was death a punishment inflicted on humanity?
Click to expand...
As Evan pointed out, you could look at it as punishment or consequence or both. Are you asking if this was “punishment” as opposed to “consequence” for any particular reason?
 
MarcoPolo said:
As Evan pointed out, you could look at it as punishment or consequence or both. Are you asking if this was “punishment” as opposed to “consequence” for any particular reason?
Click to expand...
Because a Catholic told me that death was God’s punishment for Original Sin. I was wondering if that was the Church’s teaching or just their opinion.

In Christ
Joe
 
josephdaniel29 said:
Because a Catholic told me that death was God’s punishment for Original Sin. I was wondering if that was the Church’s teaching or just their opinion.
Click to expand...
To my knowledge, there is nothing “definitive” on the matter. However Catholic teaching does not seem opposed to calling death a “punishment” as evidence in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica (which I keyword searched just now):*It is held with greater probability and more commonly that all those that are alive at the coming of our Lord, will die, and rise again shortly, as we shall state more fully in the TP (XP, 78, 1, Objection 1). If, however, it be true, as others hold, that they will never die, (an opinion which Jerome mentions among others in a letter to Minerius, on the Resurrection of the Body–Ep. cxix), then we must say in reply to the objection, that although they are not to die, the debt of death is none the less in them, and that the punishment of death will be remitted by God, since He can also forgive the punishment due for actual sins.*I don’t know what the Latin word in the Summa is there for punishment, but this is said to be a literal translation.

Now, that being said—I also want to point out that in Catholic theology, the term “punishment” can be interchangeable with the idea of “consequence.” For instance, if you study the Catechism’s use of the term “temporal punishment” for sin, you will find that the “punishment” refers to “the harm” caused by sin or “unhealthy attachment to creatures” that sin entails. (see the paragraphs on Indulgences)

So while there is evidence that Catholic teaching would not consider it erroneous to say death is a punishment for sin, it is not definitive as far as I can tell.
 
josephdaniel29 said:
Because a Catholic told me that death was God’s punishment for Original Sin. I was wondering if that was the Church’s teaching or just their opinion.

In Christ
Joe
Click to expand...
Just curious, what do the EO call death in this context, recognizing the EO have a different understanding of OS.
 
Here are a few lines from St. Ambrose that you might like to ponder:
Death was not part of nature; it became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life was condemned because of sin to unremitting labor and unbearable sorrow and so began to experiencer the burden of wretchedness. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited. …(From Liturgy of Hours, Vol. 4, p1539)

*The Lord allowed death to enter this world so that sin might come to an end. But he gave us the resurrection of the dead so that out nature might not end once more in death; death was to bring tuilt to an end, and the resurrection was to enable our nature to continue for ever.

“Death” in this context is a passover to be made by all mankind. …*(From Liturgy of Hours, Vol. 4, p497)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top